[timbuckley]

It's exactly because there is so much violence that we need to reward actors who work to reduce it.

[moonka]

Exactly. Maybe it's aspirational, but there's something grand about recognizing those who strive for a better world.

[abritinthebay]

Seriously. If anything that is the stated purpose of the creator of it after contributing to so much violence with dynamite.

For Harvard this is intensely stupid.

[megaman22]

People always bring up dynamite with Nobel, like dynamite was a significant war-fighting weapon, rather than something that spurred tbe construction of the infrasructure that made modern civilization possible.

It's Bofors, and it's place among the Victorian era heavy arms cartel with Krupp and Armstrong-Vickers that he was ashamed of.

[abritinthebay]

The reason people bring it up is Nobel’s own writing on the subject.

I think he’d know.

[tossaway1]

Doesn't look like Greenspun has any affiliation with Harvard. They just host his blog for some reason.

[mikeash]

One might ask: are humans too stupid to justify having a Nobel Prize in physics?